`A Teen-age War'

`Kool-aid Kids' Ease Terror, Pain Of Young U.s. Soldiers

July 30, 1992|By VIRGINIA BIGGINS Daily Press

NEWPORT NEWS — Paige Rockett of Hampton will be among the many area veterans who will don uniforms and swap war stories during the sixth annual Vietnam Revisited program on Saturday and Sunday in Newport News' Huntington Park.

Rockett didn't carry a gun, but she was often in the thick of things as a member of the Red Cross' recreation program in South Vietnam during the 1970-1971 period.

``Not all women wore love beads in the 1960s and early 1970s,'' says Rockett. ``There were many of us who wanted to be involved ... to show our support for our military personnel in Southeast Asia. After all, they didn't go over there by choice,'' says Rockett.

``It was a difficult decision, because I am from a Quaker background. I still felt that I should do something for the war effort so I opted for the Red Cross program. We traveled in pairs to fire support bases and other areas to conduct one-hour recreational programs. Many times, we played games like ``Jeopardy,'' which took the troops' minds off the war for a while.''

In earlier wars, Rockett would have been known as a ``Donut Dolly,'' a name given women who served coffee and doughnuts to the troops who visited Red Cross canteens.

In Vietnam, her group picked up nicknames like ``Chopper Chicks'' and ``Kool-Aid Kids.'' At the height of the war there were 125 young women assigned to the Red Cross recreation programs in South Vietnam. Units of five or six women were sent to various areas of the war torn country. They drew three to five different geographical assignments during the year they were in the war zone. Some, like Rockett, put in additional time overseas by later joining USO units in Thailand and other friendly countries in Southeast Asia.

``We were a kind of mini-Bob Hope program. On several occasions, we had to stay at a fire base or outpost for hours, especially when the North Vietnamese would shell the place and we couldn't fly out. But, that was the nature of our job. We knew there was a chance that we would come under fire,'' she says.

The young women assigned to the Red Cross recreation services program in South Vietnam were all between the ages of 21 and 25 years. They were also required to be college graduates.

For their protection, the Red Cross personnel conducted recreational programs during daylight hours only. The women were locked in at night in either trailers or small huts called ``hooches.'' It was like being in college and being confined to the dorm, she says.

And, the women were not without casualties. Rockett recalls that one woman died from injuries sustained when she fell from a jeep; another was stabbed to death by a military man who had sneaked into the women's compound. Yet another died from an infection that would not heal in that jungle-like climate. Rockett recalls that many American soldiers were medically evacuated from Vietnam because of skin infections and not bullet wounds.

``It was difficult for our people to fight off some of the ailments they contracted over there. The land took its toll on the troops,'' she says.

She remembers getting homesick for coconut cake as well as eating split pea soup by the case. The soup, she says, was convenient to carry and didn't spoil like other foods. She usually toted soup and other necessities in a olive drab colored canvas bag that was used earlier to hold deadly claymore mines. She fondly recalls her nickname given her by the Vietnamese which was ``Bay Buom'' for ``Butterfly.''

One of the incentives for her travel to the other side of the world and into a war-torn country was the French influence. ``I majored in French in college and I was intrigued that 50,000 Frenchmen stayed behind when the war started over there,'' she says.

``Vietnamese friends said the French gave them their language, culture, schools and food, but the American only gave them coke cans. I was enchanted with the French aspect of Vietnam.''

Rockett says it was difficult as a single, young woman to have a meaningful relationship in Vietnam, because it was not the real world. ``Our Red Cross teams moved around too much to really get to know someone. We would meet people we would like to know better, but we'd never see them again. We wouldn't dwell on what might have happened to them.''

She deplores the drug and alcohol problems that permeated the American military units in Vietnam. ``There was rampant drug use. It was sad. These were very young men, some of whom had never left home or the country before. They were easily influenced and often terrified,'' she says. ``One of the burdens I carried was wondering if I would be the last round-eyed American woman some young soldier or airman would see before he was killed.''

Later, Rockett was assigned to Germany where she met and married ``the only French major'' in the American military. She was in charge of recreation programs for the Department of the Army during the 1975-1980 period.

Later, she went back to college and got two master's degrees in organizational communication and gifted education.

She has since divorced and in 1987 settled on the Peninsula with her young daughter.

Rockett currently works in marketing and commercial sponsorship at Fort Monroe. She owns the Hampton Roads-based singles magazine, In Search Of, conducts seminars and other programs for singles and writes a newspaper column on subjects of interest to singles.

``The Vietnam Revisited program in Huntington Park is an important thing for the Vietnam veterans, who take the opportunity to share their days in Southeast Asia. If that is what it takes to help ease their pains, I'm all for it,'' she says.

``I didn't realize that my one year in Vietnam would create a bond that would forge me with this one special group of people and affect my future forever.''